FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – Soon the Fort Wayne-Allen County Department of Health may roll out a grading scale for local restaurants. The goal: to help prevent foodborne illness and to make it easier for you to decide where it’s safe to eat.

Health officials say the state of Indiana used to have a rating scale but did away with it about 15 years ago. For the past two years leaders say they’ve been doing research to see what would work best here in Allen County.

“So far, we have only heard positive things. We started looking for the best mechanism to utilize that here locally, and we are nearly finished with the draft,” Fort Wayne-Allen County Department of Health spokesperson Mindy Waldron said.

Administrator for the Fort Wayne-Allen County Health Department Mindy Waldron says they’ve looked into how more progressive states like California, Nevada, and North Carolina do things.

Maybe some have seen, it’s just a letter grade that is posted in a window that is indicative of an A, B, C type system and that is what we are looking at.”

Now that health officials are about done with a draft of the grading scale, they’ll soon take things a step further.

“Get it out to some of the industry folks that do this every day. This is how they make a living. Give us some constructive criticism.”

Folks NewsChannel 15 talked with say a grading scale for restaurants would be nice.

“Yeah, I was surprised they didn’t have any,” resident Richard Cox said.

Especially after the rash of restaurant closures earlier this year due to pest issues. If your favorite restaurant got a poor grade would you still go out to eat there?

“Probably not.”

“I would go to a different restaurant and see if I find something that I like,” resident Patricia Lee said.

If the ordinance gets passed for the grading scale, officials say it probably won’t be implemented until sometime next year. They say there’s a lot of education that needs to happen both for the public and restaurant owners to make this work seamlessly.